Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
Since firing Brian Kelly on Oct. 26, LSU has been a four-alarm fire. Missteps. Meddling. Now a lawsuit aimed at LSU by Kelly, whose lawyers claim the school now claims it can fire him for cause. Everyone says LSU is one of the very best jobs in the country. Arguably the best. But under these circumstances, who other than an unproven up-and-comer would want to take this job this year? At this point, 2½ weeks into the search, I have no idea. But I do know there is one man, one slam-dunk candidate, who could come to LSU, even for a short time, get everyone (including the governor) into line and set the program on a course for championship contention once again. You know who I’m talking about. I’m talking about Nick Saban. I get it. There are a million reasons Saban wouldn’t want to return to coaching. Maybe millions of reasons, assuming ESPN is paying him north of seven figures to be part of its “College GameDay” crew. Saban just turned 74. He said when he left Alabama after the 2023 season he no longer had the energy to do the job like he wanted to do it. He certainly did not want to do the job the way college football is structured in the NIL/transfer portal era. And he’s probably having a ball being an analyst and playing golf and dabbling in business with his Dream Motor Group of luxury car dealerships. The Advocate ran a story in April saying that because of his business ventures, Saban is on his way to becoming a billionaire. Why then would he want to get back in the trenches and coach college football again? Because he still has a competitive fire to do it. And because he still has a soft spot in his heart for LSU, where his brand as The Greatest Coach in College Football History left the launch pad. Saban retired at Alabama not because he no longer wanted to coach but because he didn’t like the environment. You have to consider how hyper-competitive the few people who rise to the top of the coaching profession are. People like Saban, Kim Mulkey and Jay Johnson don’t just shut off that part of themselves. Saban retiring from LSU is not like someone retiring from 30 years at the ExxonMobil plant. If he didn’t still have the fire, a fire that may be rekindled after two years off the sideline, I’d be shocked. If new LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry made the plea to Saban, paired with enough zeroes behind a number on a contract, Saban would at least have to listen. I know the smart thing is to take Saban at his word when he said last month on the “Pat McAfee Show” “I want to stay retired.” But this is also the man who said he wouldn’t be the coach at Alabama when he was with the Miami Dolphins, about 33 minutes before he left for Alabama. It’s worth picking up the phone, as Ausberry recently said he does with Saban once or twice a month. Saban is not a long-term solution for LSU. You could only expect he would come back for two, three, four seasons tops. But it would be enough to right the ship and set it back on a course that he set LSU on 20 years ago. After leading the Tigers to the 2003 national championship and going 9-3 his final season in 2004, LSU went 11-2, 11-2 and 12-2 with a national title under Les Miles. Miles deserves credit for that success, but Saban created the culture for winning and set the foundation. I was able to say hello to Saban on Saturday night as he came through the Alabama press box before LSU’s 20-9 loss to the Crimson Tide. He didn’t stop to chat. I didn’t blame him. He would have been mobbed. He was wearing a crimson-colored sweater (no Alabama or “A” visible, for the record), accompanied by his crimson-adorned wife Terry. A person who covers Alabama told me Saban has attended slightly more than half of Bama’s home games the past two seasons, so it’s not realistic to think he was there to “scout” the Tigers. I still think the chances of Saban coming back to coaching anywhere — at LSU, in the NFL, at his old high school in West Virginia — are small. As in single digits small. Still, I had to raise an eyebrow when I got an email Tuesday from the folks at BetOnline.ag, a betting site which now lists Saban as the favorite for the LSU job at 2/1. A week earlier, Saban was way down their list at 75/1. By the way, the rest of their top five: Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin (15/4, just under 4/1), Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator and former LSU assistant Joe Brady (4/1), Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea (5/1) and Oregon coach Dan Lanning (7/1). If not Saban, and again it probably will not be Saban, I wouldn’t hire anyone as old as Kelly, who turned 64 the day of the Texas A&M loss (some birthday present). Heck, I just turned 59 and probably wouldn’t hire anyone as old as me. This job requires a rare level of obsession, and as they say in the movie “The Prestige,” obsession is a young man’s game. But no other man LSU could possibly get, young or old, would have the impact Saban would have. LSU needs to get him back.
